


A Chat In the Dark

by EmaniaHilel



Series: After-Hours [2]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Companion Piece, F/M, Marinette's Birthday, Small bit of angst, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 00:59:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12876798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmaniaHilel/pseuds/EmaniaHilel
Summary: A late night text-conversation between Adrien and Marinette...This is the companion piece to "After-Hours Chat" and is the conversation that happened there, from Adrien's point of view.  You don't have to have read that one to understand this one, but it's a different experience if you haven't.  ^_~.Directly related to Marinette's Birthday episode 2x04 "La Befana"





	A Chat In the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone for their support of my very first Miraculous fic! I hope you enjoy this one, too.

_**A Chat in the Dark  
by Em** _

__

_“Who said nights were for sleep?”_  
\- Marilyn Monroe

Adrien sighed as he stared down at the words on the softly glowing display in his hands. Well, to be perfectly honest, he was notably _not_ looking at the words on the display. He knew if he looked at the words on the display, he may be tempted to change them… _again_ …and he refused to give in to the impulse. So, he kept his focus on the bottom right hand corner of the display and sighed… _again._

He closed his eyes and shook his head softly, wondering for the umpteenth time what havoc such a small slip of a girl could wreak on his life.

Yes, okay, Adrien knew he was known for being _nice_ by his friends, but he couldn’t possibly have survived in the fashion industry if he didn’t have _some_ backbone. 

Temperamental photographers, rushed seamstresses, overworked apprentice designers, none of them caused so much as a ripple in the outward facade of calm Adrien had learned from an early age to project. Heck, he had no problem whatsoever facing down Monsier D’Argencourt during his mad frenzy prior to a meet or even the cold dismissiveness of his father.

And yet, Marinette Dupain-Cheng paralyzed him. 

And the girl could barely stand to be near him. 

He exhaled, disgusted with himself, and nearly erased the whole thing… _again._

His memory flashed to her smile when she unwrapped her present, the sincere joy and pleasant surprise he’d read in it and he smiled reflexively, the smile fading as he remembered, too, how she had stumbled and stuttered in her haste to get away from him.

Well, he reasoned, what’s the worse that could happen? If she was asleep, she was asleep, and if she wasn’t, she had a perfect excuse to ignore him — it _was_ three am after all. 

He tapped the “send” key before he could question himself again, starting to put the phone away, determined not to stare at it like an idiot and wait for her reply. 

The fact that she could — _would_ — read the message when she woke up even if she was asleep now didn’t filter in until the phone was halfway inside his pocket again. Panicked, he pulled it out and searched the face of it, wondering if he ever knew of a way to recall unread text messages while part of his mind considered calling Nino - then Max for a way to _fix this,_ before discarding them both. No way he would live this one down if he brought in either one of those boys…

And besides, what would he tell them? That he was texting the class sweetheart, Marinette, at 3 am like a creeper?

But he _had_ to do something, didn’t he?

It was one thing for her to see his text tonight and decide to ignore it, using the excuse she was sleeping, but what would her excuse be in the morning? 

The answer occurred to him a flash of brilliance…

Chat Noir could very easily get into the girl’s bedroom, delete the message from her phone and get out of the bedroom before she had even known he’s been there. He had absolutely no doubt about that. He’d been in her bedroom before and knew she had no bars in her windows, even that she rarely locked it. 

He stood up and had already taken one determined step when the telltale vibration in his pocket halted his movements, buckling his knees and making him sit down _hard_ in disappointment. 

His disappointment didn’t last long, however, as curiosity very quickly took its place, his fingers urgently seeking the phone out of his pocket and pulling up the pertinent application, clicking on Marinette’s name.

He read the response, a rather plain, _‘I’m up’_ and blinked in confusion. 

Granted, he’d rarely had more than a minute’s long conversation with her, but he had sat in front of her for long enough (not to mention that he knew how to _pay attention_ to things going on around him) to know that the almost brusque words wasn’t Marinette’s usual approach. 

Except…maybe it was… _with him, anyway._

He should take the hint. 

But then again…maybe she _had_ been asleep and his text had woken her up. 

His fingers typed carefully, hitting send before he could doubt himself.

_> Did I wake you?<_

The response came almost immediately, but the plain, _“No”_ didn’t do much to ease the frown from his brow…or the doubt from his heart. 

He _really_ should take the darn hint, already.

_> Can’t sleep?<_

He couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to the class president. No matter how many times she rebuffed his attempts at friendship, he couldn’t just let it go. Not when she had seemed so…

The buzzing in his hand and the flash of the display lighting up again derailed his thoughts and he anxiously looked down at her reply. 

_> Don’t want to yet.<_

Adrien frowned down at the words, carefully typing out his response. 

_> You ok?<_

He winced as the little dots on the bottom of the application Nino had showed him indicated whether someone was actively typing stopped, but no new message appeared on the screen. Did that mean she had changed her mind, he wondered? Was she thinking of a way to tell him in no uncertain terms it was none of his business and to let her go back to sleep?

Granted, he _knew_ that wasn’t Marinette’s M.O. either (if he was known as being nice, Marinette had earned the designation of Class Champion — he knew she would never purposefully hurt someone, even him) but he couldn’t help but wonder.

_> I’m good.<_

Her response, when it finally came, was so anticlimactic that he found himself blinking at the words as if he had suddenly forgotten how to read French. “She’s good?” he echoed aloud, half under his breath. Her grandmother was akumatized! She was terrorized by her own grandmother! She watched her friends be turned to some kind of coal statutes while she ran and hid for her life from her own flesh and blood. Sure, akuma victims were disturbingly common by now, but her own mother had been turned into a minion sent to ‘punish’ her. But…she was _good._

The disbelief in his words was plainly obvious to him, but for the first time during that conversation, he didn’t edit himself and hit send without amending his first response. 

_> So, you’re still up at 3 am just because?<_

He only had to wait for a moment before her reply came, and although he can’t say he didn’t think about whether he had crossed a boundary by the question, he didn’t let himself _linger_ on it.

_> Not just because…<_

He exhaled when she replied, and smiled when her second text came through.

_> I was actually at a really good part in a new book.<_

He chuckled and shook his head. Now _that_ was more like the Marinette he knew. He could very well imagine Marinette up late reading into the wee hours because she was in a good part in a new book. The overwhelming desire to _know more_ about this girl hit him again like a physical thing and his fingers typed out a response before checking in with the rest of him, hitting send before he really thought about it.

_> Oh? What book?<_

As he read his own words on the screen, he shook his head. _‘What did it matter what book she was reading?’_ he asked himself. “That has nothing to do with the reason you told yourself you were texting her at 3 am, Agreste,” he chastised himself in a grumble under his breath. But he couldn’t help it…he was curious (so curious) about this girl that every new little tidbit of information he found out about her fascinated him. 

_> ”Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” by Ramsom Riggs. It’s really very good if you like fantasy/adventure type books.<_

Her answer thrilled him and for a moment, he was torn between switching out of the chat application to his web browser to look up the book so that he could have something to say about it, but he didn’t want to leave the application. 

_> Oh yeah? Is it good?_

He stopped typing and groaned at his own ridiculousness. She had _just_ said it was good. She had also said it was good by the fact she was up until 3 am reading it. Shaking his head, he deleted the words and tried again. 

_> What’s it about?_

But he stopped before hitting send on that one and frowned. He could do better than that open ended type of question, couldn’t he? He deleted that one and tried again.

_> Fantasy like sword and sorcery or like urban fantasy?_

He looked at the question, a bit more pleased at this attempt. It was an intelligent query, designed to get her talking about the subject without the possibility of answering in one word answers. Briefly, he considered editing it to include examples which would show her he liked to read too by name dropping some well known authors of the genres he was asking about, but he talked himself out of it. 

His finger hovered over the ‘send’ key, however and with a sigh, he hit the delete key instead, erasing the entirety of the question and typing something else instead. 

_> Well, I’m glad.<_

He had to keep reminding himself that as much as he wanted to get to know this girl, she had given him very little indication she felt the same, and keeping her up at 3 am with pointless questions about the books she was reading wouldn’t be likely to sit well with her when she had already appeared to be—

_> Glad that the book is good?<_

Her response cut off his train of thought and he blinked at it, smiling despite himself at how easily he could imagine the cute way she would cock her head a bit to the side in confusion. He re-read the reply he’d written that she was responding to and shook his head. It really hadn’t been very clear - he didn’t blame her for not understanding what he’d meant. 

_> No.<_

He hit send before realizing how _that_ response would read and quickly typed to amend it.

_> I mean, yes, I’m glad the book is interesting (maybe I can borrow it when you’re done?), but I’m just…<_

He hit send more out of his hurry to make sure she didn’t think he was going to leave his response at a flat no, but now he hesitated with how to explain. He exhaled and decided to just go for honesty. 

_> Well, with all the excitement today, I just wanted to check in and make sure you were ok.<_

He leaned back and watched the screen, waiting to see how she would respond to that bit of honesty from him. 

Her reply came surprisingly fast.

_> Thank you. :) I’m really ok.<_

His eyes caught and held on the happy face emoticon, a grin spreading across his lips and warmth spreading through his chest at the sight, because _he could imagine that smile on her face_ and the mere memory of it warmed him. 

It was rare for him to receive a true Marinette Smile directed solely at him. It _had_ happened, but it was rare.

He started to type his response right away, riding the warmth of that smile.

_> Well, if you ever need to talk about it I’m_

He stopped typing at the popping up of an additional response by Marinette.

_> It’s not everyday I get saved by a superhero.<_

His grin went from warm to ‘shit-eating’ in the time it took him to read the sentence. Not only because he could read the subtle teasing tone to the words she’d written, but because even if she was teasing, she was still talking about something _he’d_ done…sure, she didn’t know that it was him, but _still._ And he couldn’t help but feel a bit like the proverbial cat with the cream at that one. His fingers itched to type the response that popped fully formed in his head, but he knew that typing ‘my pleasure, princess’ would be entirely inappropriate coming from Adrien.

Before he could respond, however, another message appeared.

_> Or, receive such a beautiful bracelet as a present.<_

Oh.

_Oh._

Had his grin been _shit eating_ before? Now, it was downright _stupid._ He was grinning stupidly and loonily and his heart was beating a mile a minute and he was lucky he didn’t just completely lose all spatial sense with the way his entire body went soft as her words sunk in. 

Sure, she’d said she liked the present when he gave it to her, but then she’d stuttered and gotten away from him as fast as she could, so he’d thought maybe she was just being polite.

Maybe she was still just being polite.

The thought deflated his glow a bit, but he shook his head before letting himself explore that thought too much. Whatever her reasons might have been, he was just going to accept her compliment. But how to respond?

_> A beautiful present for a beautiful lady_

He stopped and shook his head firmly, taking hold of his phone with both hands, pointedly deleting the remark. That wouldn’t do at all. She was talking to Adrien, not Chat Noir, after all. 

_‘Easy, Agreste,’ he told himself. ‘Play it cool.’_

_> It wasn’t a big deal_

He frowned down at the words, the lie in them jarring. It _had_ been a big deal. Not just to reverse engineer the bracelet she had given him, or to actually go ahead and figure out how to do it — the mess of beads and wire and tools and half-completed bracelets in various levels of imperfection littering his work table could attest to _that_ — but to figure out what to give her in the first place. And, of course, to gather the courage to actually pack it in the little box and take it with him to the party. 

Forget about what it had taken him to actually _give_ the thing to her… _twice,_ even. 

He deleted the words, casting about for something to respond. Something not too sappy, but truthful…

_> I have never been given a gift like the bracelet you gave me and I wanted you to have something made just for you_

He smiled softly at the words, the truth in them echoing rightness inside him. His thumb hovered over the send button, but he couldn’t quite make himself push it. 

Sighing again, he deleted the words and settled for something _mostly_ true, but still casual and slightly teasing.

_> Well, I couldn’t leave you without a lucky charm, could I?< _

His lips quirked in a lopsided smile and he added the smilie face emoticon at the end, hitting send before he could change his mind. 

Her response came almost immediately. 

_> Doesn’t mean you had to go through the trouble of making one, you know!<_

His smile broadened at the distinctly Marinette tone to the sentence and he responded without giving it much thought.

He stopped himself just before hitting send again, his finger hesitating over the button for a moment, then two. With a determined shake of his head, however, he let it fall and sent the message off. 

_> True. But I just couldn’t make myself give you yours back.<_

And…he waited.

And…waited.

_And waited._

He looked up from staring at the screen and stared straight ahead, squinting into the middle distance, determined not to stare down at the screen like he was a kid waiting for magic to happen. 

She would respond when she responded. 

He glanced down to confirm that not even the little dots were undulating, then forced himself to look away again. 

He stood up and paced a few steps. She had told him the bracelet she gave him was her lucky charm, hadn’t she? She shared it with him because she was kind and thoughtful and she had thought he needed it, and he had just played dumb and not given it back.

What if she thought he was being selfish? 

He stopped his pacing and typed, hitting send before he could change his mind. 

_> Sorry if that makes me selfish.<_

That brought the little dots back to life on the bottom of the screen, but it didn’t produce a response right away. Instead, after a moment or two, they stopped and no message came. Just when he frowned, wondering what to do about it, the dots began moving again.

Then, stopped again. 

He was running through different options of things he could say when the dots appeared again and before he could even be glad of their re-emergence, the message appeared on his screen. 

_> If it makes you happy, then I want you to have it.<_

His stupid grin was back with a vengeance.

Part of him had the wherewithal to wonder, _‘if?’_ but most of him was stuck on the implication in her words - that she _cared_ about his happiness. That she would sacrifice something that was important to her for him. 

But, of course she would. That was Marinette all over. 

Sure, he had seen enough of her to know she had bouts of temper and if the way she still froze him out most of the time was anything to judge by, an astonishing capacity to hold a grudge, but she was mostly caring and thoughtful and…

_> It makes me very happy.<_

Once again, her response returned relatively quickly, but the simpleness of it didn’t seem out of place this time. 

_> I’m glad.<_

He was still smiling stupidly at her last sentences when she wrote again. 

_> Your gift makes me very happy, too.<_

For a moment, he felt as if he were floating in a sensory deprivation chamber - inside a vacuum devoid of ambient noise, stray breezes, lights or even the ground beneath him. The warmth spreading through his chest, over his neck and into his face slowly brought him back to the realities of space and place and he lost his balance a bit, stumbling against a nearby wall. He let his knees give out so that he slid down to sit on the ground, accepting the fact that he would _need a minute_ to process.

Blinking, he looked back at the screen of the phone somehow miraculously still in his hand and re-read the words there. 

Not just happy…no…

_…very happy._

He found himself laughing aloud, giddy, his heart racing. 

He hadn’t felt that way since the first time he realized what Plagg was - what being Chat Noir would mean for him…

No, he hadn’t felt this way since that first moment he’d looked at Ladybug and felt the tug of recognition of something more than mere acquaintance. 

A tug like recognition, like belonging. 

Attraction, too, of course. Ladybug was beautiful and strong. 

And although he didn’t have the same kind of camaraderie with Marinette that he had with Ladybug, he was starting to realize that somehow, some way, he felt the same connection to Marinette that he felt with Ladybug. 

Which was often confusing and sometimes frustrating - especially when he stopped to consider that Marinette could barely stand to be in the same place with him for more than short bursts at a time. He ran his free hand through his hair and stared as the shadows played against the curtains over the window a short distance from him. He didn’t know what to do to get closer to Marinette, really, but with every instance he spent with her, every interaction he was close enough to witness of Marinette’s inventiveness and quick thinking and kindness of heart and bravery of spirit, he knew more and more surely that he _wanted_ to be closer to her. 

Closer the way she was with Alya or Nino. 

The closest he’d ever gotten to seeing that side of her first hand was when he dealt with her as Chat Noir. She had no problem showing her sass to Chat - no problem sharing her inventiveness with his superhero alter ego, helping him trick the Evillustrator or share her concerns with him as he carried her to safety away from the Befana…

He sighed and looked back at the phone in his hands.

Well, she wasn’t having too much trouble talking to him now either, was she?

 _‘Don’t make it weird, Agreste,’_ he chastised himself. 

He grinned and responded to her last message before letting himself overthink it. 

_> Happier than being carried half a city away to the Eiffel Tower by a black clad superhero? =^..^= <_

He didn’t have much time to wonder how she’d take the comment before her reply came through.

_> :-) lol  <_

He quirked a brow and typed quickly.

_> I notice you didn’t answer my question. Hmmm…<_

The little dots appeared almost immediately. 

_> Well, being carried off to the Eiffle Tower is pretty tough to beat.<_

His other brow raised to join the first and he responded without thinking much at all.

_> Is that a challenge?<_

It took him a moment to realize he was smiling still as he watched for signs she was going to respond. When a few moments elapsed and she didn’t respond, he cocked his head to the side. ‘ _Oh really?’_ he thought to himself, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

_> Alright…I’m definitely taking that as a challenge, Marinette. Fair warning.<_

He wasn’t sure if this conversation was going to change the way she treated him next time they saw each other face to face, but he could sense that her initial almost terse replies to him had morphed into something a bit more natural and so he could only hope. Maybe if he teased her some more…

He could almost hear Plagg’s voice in his head, asking him whether he really thought he was just teasing Marinette. _‘In some cultures, what you’re doing would be called flirting, loverboy..’_

_> LOL. Nothing beats a home made gift, Adrien.<_

He felt himself warm again, but couldn’t help himself from asking.

_> Nothing?<_

He paused for a moment after hitting send, telling himself to leave it there, but he had come too far to stop now, so he typed and hit send again.

_> Not even being whisked away to the most romantic spot in the whole of Paris?<_

He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until her response came through almost immediately. 

_> Not even.<_

He exhaled and found himself smiling again. He started thinking of what to respond, but a new message came through from her before he could. 

_> And I think the Square du Vert-Galant is way more romantic than the Eiffle Tower, anyway.<_

He laughed aloud and leaned back against the wall, crossing his legs at the ankles, his eyes flicking upwards for a quick moment before lowering onto the screen of his phone in his hands again. 

_‘The Square du Vert-Galant, huh?’_ he wondered, picturing the spot in his mind’s eye. He hadn’t really spent much time in the park, but his recall managed to bring up images of a smallish park bound in on two sides by the Seine near the Pont Neuf and the Louvre. He wouldn’t have pictured it as a particularly romantic spot - not as romantic as the Pont des Artes, or the Jardins du Luxembourg, for example, but the more he thought about it, the more he could see the appeal for Marinette. It was scenic and wooded and small enough to give the impression of a private hideaway like something out of a fairytale.

Oh yes, he could see Marinette in a place like that…strolling hand in hand or maybe with her head on his shoulder as they shared a picnic lunch on the grass…

He cut the train of thought off and shook his head of the errant images. She wouldn’t want to go on a picnic with him, or a romantic stroll either. As he knew from every other time he’d spent any amount of time in her company alone, she’d be either quiet and withdrawn or anxious and jittery, like she couldn’t get away soon enough. 

He sighed and looked back at the phone in his hands, wondering idly whether he should accept that it was his lot in life to be attracted to strong, beautiful, kind girls who wouldn’t ever give him the time of day. 

Realizing suddenly what a fool he was being to be thinking these morose thoughts when one of those beautiful, kind girls was very willingly talking (well, texting) with him that very moment even though she should be asleep, he shook his head purposefully and laughed at himself and typed a response.

_> Cancel helicopter ride to Eiffle Tower, check.<_

He waited for a moment, knowing he didn’t have to type the next part, but he was so tempted to take advantage of the benefits afforded by the fact she couldn’t see his face that he couldn’t help but give in to the impish impulse to test his limits with her right that moment. 

_> Research logistics of having a picnic at the Square du Vert-Galant…check<_

_‘Let’s see how you deal with that, Marinette,’_ he asked her silently, raising his eyes to look out at the curtained window in the distance, every sense alert for any sign of a response. 

After a few moments passed and she hadn’t responded, he looked down worriedly at the phone in his hands and frowned. Maybe he’d gone too far. 

Unable to help himself, he pulled away from the wall and paced, making himself look everywhere but at the phone in his hands and notably _not_ keeping time in his head.

One-hundred and eighty seconds later (more or less, it’s not like he was _keeping count_ or anything), movement on the screen caught his attention and he looked down to see the little dots moving while she typed. 

Almost without realizing it, he held his breath, waiting to see whether Marinette took his words in the way he had half hoped she would. 

The moment the dots stopped moving and disappeared, his breath hitched, but when no response came a few moments later, he exhaled on a groan and dropped back into sitting. He looked back at the window, starting a bit in surprise when he realized how close his pacing had brought him.

He was still _far_ , of course, but if he squinted…

The soft pulse of vibration in his palm brought his attention immediately back down to the phone in his hand. 

_> As lovely as that sounds…I still think a handmade bracelet given for luck is better.<_

He grinned, stupidly again, at the words in front of him, feeling the warmth of her praise seep into his heart and brand themselves there. 

She might not mean anything by it except a kindness, but it didn’t matter to him — it really didn’t. His fingers ached from resisting the sudden impulse to just say it, to type something like,‘ _I’ll make you a bracelet every day just for the possibility that you’ll smile at me the way you did today’_ or just plain old, _‘Go out with me tomorrow?’_ But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t risk the chance that things would be _weird_ between them…she could barely talk to him normally…this texting, this was progress and he couldn't ruin it with his impatience. 

He sat up and typed his response quickly, hitting send before he could change his mind or overthink it. 

_> If it makes you happy, I can live with that.<_

He realized only upon re-reading his words that he had echoed her sentiment from earlier and he found himself smiling a bit proudly, almost as if he had done it on purpose. Then, he chuckled at himself again, staring at the window a few buildings away from him, trying to read the shadows cast against the closed shade from inside the room. 

He looked down as a new text came in and grinned at her response. 

_> ^_^<_

Even though it was just an emoticon, even though it wasn’t _really_ a response and certainly not the type of response he had been hoping for, he couldn’t help but grin because it was so incredibly Marinette. 

So, he couldn’t help but respond in kind. 

_> ^_^<_

A shift in the shadows cast against the curtains caught his attention and he looked up sharply, squinting so that his enhanced eyes watched as her shadow lifted her arms over her head, the whole length of her upper body stretching upward.

His expression softened, and he shook his head. 

_> It’s late…<_

He didn’t _really_ want to write the next bit, but he knew he should, so he did. 

_> You should get some sleep.<_

He watched as Marinette’s shadow lowered its arms from the stretch that must’ve accompanied a yawn and lean back, so that it was no longer between the light of her bedside lamp and the window. 

_> You’re right.<_

He really couldn’t complain. He’d had a longer conversation with Marinette today than he probably had in most of the time he’d known her put together, and that included the time they were briefly paired up together for the gaming championship or the time he helped her with her Chinese Uncle the Chef. 

At least, while he was Adrien.

Adrien looked down at his clawed hand in his Chat Noir glove and mentally corrected himself. While she _thought_ she was talking to Adrien, anyway. 

He was thinking of how to say goodnight when a new message came in.

 _> Hey Adrien…are_ you _ok? <_

He blinked uncomprehendingly at the words for a moment, typing up a response without really thinking.

_> Me?<_

He closed his eyes and shook his head at the stupidity of that response, but he really couldn’t figure out why she’d ask. Had he given himself away somehow? He hadn’t been acting like Chat Noir with her, even though he was transformed and he had all of Chat Noir’s instincts, he had done a pretty good job of staying away from any puns and blatant flirtation. 

_> You’re up late too.<_

Her explanation made his heart skip a beat and he had to swallow hard passed the sudden emotion in his throat. His eyes lifted to the lighted window above the bakery and marveled, once again, at the amazing girl that was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. As much as caring about others was second nature to him, being cared about was so new it felt rough against the outer shell of his emotions, even as it soothed the almost constant hum of _something_ wide and empty and hollow deep inside him. 

_> I got caught up watching some stuff <_

His answer was more honest than she would ever know since she would never know how, unable to sleep, he had transformed into Chat Noir for some air and somehow found himself in her neighborhood, caught by surprise by the light glowing from her window so late at night. 

So caught, in fact, that he’d been unable to stop himself from situating himself a decent distance away and texting her, even though it had been almost 3 in the morning. 

So caught up that although he’d started texting her a good four buildings away, he was somehow now close enough to hear the soft noises as she shifted on her bed with his enhanced hearing. 

_Caught,_ he realized, had been an understatement. 

Before he could give in to any further temptation and end up vaulting onto her rooftop garden just beyond the skylight in her roof, he texted her again. 

_> Goodnight, Marinette._  
Sweet dreams.  
And…happy birthday, again.<

Her response came almost immediately.

_> Goodnight, Adrien. Sleep well.  
And, thanks again.<_

He tried not to picture her snuggling under her covers, resting her head on her pillow before reaching out and… 

With a soft click, the light at the window winked out and Chat Noir turned around and bounded into the night. 


End file.
